I Remember My First Thesaurus Too
The internet is to civil discourse what strip poker was to my teenage chastity: not exactly the shortest path from here to there. Still, I was surprised by the sheer childishness of this list, a sort of Fifty Ways to Say I Hate You, and it was surely a downer on a day that for Elena only got worse.
My gut reaction is that Christians will always be at a tactical disadvantage in internet discourse for the same reason America must be at a tactical disadvantage with respect to terrorists: we need respect their humanity even as they do not respect ours. Though I thought of that before recalling Mark Shea's commenters.
But the list directed at Elena was unintentionally humorous. "Bitter" and "sour" are close enough to suggest the author has just discovered the wonders of the online thesaurus. And since the list bears no resemblance to Elena's persona it's sort of like calling a bald guy Curly. But the true humor is in the final riposte "Unattractive (personality wise)" which, based on what went before, would be like criticizing Idi Amin for his swearing. This coup de grace was not only redundant given the preceding adjectives but offers the unintended compliment of ruling out any physical unattractiveness: the comprehensiveness of the list assures us of that!
See, there's always a horse amid the manure.
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